Nathan Leonhardt, a maintenance worker at the Cathedral of St. Paul shows Thursday, Jan. 5, 2017, where he found a baby between the exterior and interior doors of the Dayton Avenue entrance of the church when he was closing up after the 5:15 p.m. mass on Wednesday, Jan. 4, in St. Paul. He said at first he thought someone had left laundry. Then he thought it was a baby puppy. He brought the baby to Rev. John Ubel who called the police. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

A muffled baby’s wail was the first — and most powerful — thing the church custodian remembers.

“I miss him already,” Nathan Leonhardt said. “I thought it was a puppy. It’s the last thing I thought it would be was a baby. When I heard it cry, I stood by the door for what felt like 10 seconds.”

While on evening closing rounds at the Cathedral of St. Paul on Wednesday, Leonhardt discovered something obstructing the doors to a foyer — a tiny space sheltering the exit to a side street. Blustery winds had already put outside temperatures at 2 degrees at the time — and would drop to 7 below zero overnight.

The Dayton Avenue foyer wasn’t overly cold, but wasn’t exactly warm, either. Strong winter drafts assault Cathedral Hill from the open expanse to the east, invading each time the heavy exterior door opened.

And there, at the top of the foyer’s steps in a nearly empty laundry basket, was a newborn boy. Small, “close to a preemie,” between 5 and 6 pounds. Swaddled in a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” blanket.

Leonhardt, 36, of South St. Paul, picked him up, wiped him off: The boy was naked, still covered in blood and afterbirth, with a small portion of his umbilical cord clipped by a paper holder. He’d obviously just been born.

“He calmed down immediately, opened his eyes. Father instinct, I guess,” said Leonhardt, who has a 4-year-old daughter of his own. “It felt like it was mine. It was my own child.”

There were few clues as to who left him there: The only other things in the basket were a women’s zip-up sweater and a pair of men’s socks.

Because the boy appeared healthy, Leonhardt called his church superior before 911. And as there were only a few people left in the cathedral at its 6 p.m. closing time, Leonhardt was able to shield the baby from notice.

The Rev. John Ubel, the cathedral’s rector, was just sitting down to dinner after Wednesday evening Mass. On the phone, his custodian seemed frantic.

“Father, get over here right away. There’s a baby here,” Leonhardt remembers telling Ubel as soon as he picked up.

At a packed news conference Thursday, Ubel said with a winsome smile, “suffice to say in more than 27 years as a priest, I’ve never witnessed anything like this.”

Shortly after Ubel arrived at the cathedral Wednesday evening, the doors opened again, allowing a cold gust to blow inside. And the baby began to cry.

“Don’t worry, it’s O.K., welcome to Minnesota. Get used to it,” Ubel said.

As they waited for police, Ubel decided to baptize the boy, whom Ubel christened “Nathan John,” after his rescuers. When asked why he performed the baptism, he said he remembered thinking, “It could be an emergency; we don’t know it’s health. And so we did. … If there is possible danger of death, it is always appropriate to offer the sacrament of baptism. I just felt it was the most appropriate thing to do.”

Asked what he thought of the cathedral’s biggest donation of the New Year, Ubel added, “This child is safe. That’s the most important thing. I’m not here to judge. I don’t know the reasons. … If we truly are pro-life, as we say we are, then we need to respond appropriately.

“I think what’s most important here is somebody chose life, and we will do all in our power to help people, to assist them, to choose life,” Ubel added.

Paramedics determined the child was uninjured, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman.

Nathan Leonhardt, left, talks about how he found a baby at the St. Paul Cathedral and brought the baby to Rev. John Ubel, right, who called the police. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Upon arrival, St. Paul police Sgt. Charlie Anderson said he could tell the baby was newly born — and asked paramedics to hurry.

Most of the officers who responded were fathers — including a brand-new one. This was a different type of call.

“We were thankful the mom decided to try to find a safe place,” Anderson said. “We also were extremely grateful for the cathedral staff member who stumbled upon him. It’s a cold building, so in a way we were also lucky because if the baby wasn’t discovered, it very easily could have been a different story.”

Paramedics took the baby to Children’s Hospitals and Clinics in St. Paul — and the officers followed.

But only after a quick trip to Target, where they bought him a blanket, pajamas, a monkey hat, a bouncy chair, a Sophie giraffe teether — “my kids loved those, so I picked up one,” Anderson said — and more.

When the police arrived at the hospital — though they’d likely lost sight of the baby for only an hour or so — the reunion was tearful.

“He’d been cleaned up and placed in an incubator,” Anderson said. “He was as snug as a bug in a rug. We all crowded around it. We all had some wet eyes and the nurses did, too.”

If Anderson could get a message to the baby’s mother, he’d want to tell her two things: “The child was surrounded by people who instantly fell in love with him. And that we wish her the best.”

After being checked at the hospital, the baby was found to be fine and was turned over to Ramsey County Child Protection.

Ramsey County spokesman John Siqveland noted in a statement that in such cases, Child Protection typically determines permanent placement. But such specifics would not be public, due to privacy laws.

Emily Piper, commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Health and Human Services, appeared at the news conference to reiterate Minnesota’s Safe Place for Newborns law.

Under the law, a mother — or someone with her permission — can anonymously leave a baby born in the past seven days with an employee at a safe place without fear of prosecution. The law says that can be a hospital, an urgent care facility or an ambulance responding to a 911 call. The “safe place” must not inquire about the mother’s identity or call the police, as long as the newborn is unharmed.

“No questions asked, no blame, no shame,” Piper said.

Piper acknowledged that “technically,” a church isn’t a place covered by the law — “But I can’t think of an instance where authorities have chosen to criminally prosecute a mother who left their child,” she added.

“We’re happy that the baby is safe, but we’re also concerned that there’s a mother that’s out there that possibly gave birth to this child without medical care and that’s possibly in need of some help, also,” Ernster said. “We would encourage her to call 911 or go to a hospital without any fear of the police looking at this as a criminal matter.”

Noting she herself is a mother of four, Piper said, “I just cannot imagine the pain that mother feels. I hope she has peace with the decision she made.”

Piper also used the news conference to note that roughly 500 children were currently in the state adoption system. And while privacy concerns would make it problematic for a person to specifically ask for the cathedral baby to adopt, “I hope people would keep an open mind,” Piper said, and adopt one of the hundreds that need a home.

Mara Gottfried has been a Pioneer Press reporter since 2001, mostly covering public safety. Gottfried lived in St. Paul as a young child and returned to the Twin Cities after graduating from the University of Maryland. You can reach her at 651-228-5262.

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